“Yes.”
Olinger lied. He hadn’t been in the cafeteria during the past half hour. Olinger wanted to get Ruth out of here. Before…
Ford Smith said, “She found Hocker, remember? Maybe the guy killed her, too.”
Ruth Bartlett screamed and Olinger stepped up to Smith and said furiously, “Keep your mouth shut!”
Smith recoiled, but Pete Walsh took up his battle. “You know that’s what we’re all thinking, Olinger!”
“Find that girl, Olinger,” said Gaylord. “Find her at once. There’s too much happening around here.”
“I’m doing my best. Want me to quit?” cried Olinger. “All right. I will. Get one of the others to run things here.”
Quade saw the quick look Andy Gaylord shot around at the strike captains before he replied hurriedly to Olinger. “No, no, Olinger. Don’t be so touchy. You’re handling things nicely. I got to get back to the other side.” He popped out of the room.
Olinger ran his fingers through his thick black hair. He looked at Ruth Bartlett and his face became strained. “All right, Ruth, you may as well know the worst. Someone from in here started that slaughter outside. Shot Sheriff Spiess from a window. That’s the gun, there.”
“How many bullets fired from it?” asked Ruth.
“Three,” Quade replied. “Two for Hocker and one outside.”
Relief flooded Ruth Bartlett’s face. “Then Martha—”
“Probably around the building somewhere.”
“We’ll have some of the boys look for her in a minute,” said Olinger.
Ruth smiled her thanks, and left the office. Then the strike captains lit into Olinger. “We’re licked on all sides,” said Steve Murphy. “Bartlett’s daughter in our ranks, spies, murders, mysterious riflemen…” He sighed heavily.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Ford Smith. “One that’ll cinch the strike for us. Bartlett’s daughter is here. Suppose we send the old man a message, saying if he gives in, nothin’ happens to his girl. But if he don’t…”
Bob Olinger was too slight to hit Smith. Smith would fight back and probably lick Olinger. So Quade beat Olinger to the punch. He smacked Smith alongside the jaw; a short, vicious punch that slammed him to the floor. He didn’t get up.
Pete Walsh snarled, “I say Smith’s idea isn’t bad. There’s twelve hundred men working here. Some’ve already been killed. If you think one girl is worth—”
Quade had to put a half nelson on Olinger to keep him from charging the bigger Walsh.
“I’m warning you, all of you!” howled Olinger. “If any of you so much as touches Ruth Bartlett, I’ll kill him myself!”
“No one’s going to touch her,” said Henry Jackson. “Steve and me’ll see to that, won’t we, Steve?”
The ex-prizefighter spat, “You damn right, Henry. I’m going to see Ford and Pete after the strike. I want to talk some things over.”
Quade headed Olinger for the door. “Come on, Olinger, we’ve got to look for Martha White.”
On the fourth floor they found her, behind a couple of cases. Her neck was broken. Her face wasn’t pretty to see. Quade covered Martha’s body with wrapping paper. “Olinger,” he said, “you’d better arbitrate with Bartlett.”
“I’m willing,” moaned Olinger. “It’s him that won’t. Gaylord’s made concessions. Our demands are damn reasonable, but Bartlett won’t meet them.”
“You mentioned other officials of the company. How much voice have they?”
“It’s a corporation. Bartlett owns controlling interest, did rather. I hear some of his stock is mortgaged now. Hocker, Samuel Sharp and Cassoway were the main stockholders. Hocker’s dead, Sharp has never been an active owner. Cassoway isn’t strong enough to buck Bartlett.”
“But every day the strike lasts, Bartlett loses money.”
“So do we. And it hurts us more than it does Bartlett.”
“I don’t know; if he’s had to mortgage his stock he can’t be so well fixed. If the strike runs two or three weeks and Bartlett pays all those strikebreakers and there was sabotage…”
“Sabotage!”
“I’ve been dreading it every minute since we found Hocker’s body. Look, do you figure one of the workmen would murder Hocker and Martha White, then shoot down the sheriff so the armed deputies would kill a few helpless fellow workers?” Olinger looked at Quade in astonishment. “But who would—”
“My contention is that the one who’s making all the trouble is doing it to prolong the strike. For one reason: To cripple Bartlett.”
“You mean one of Bartlett’s partners?”
“Or the one who holds the mortgage on Bartlett’s stock. If we knew who that was…”
They returned to the main office. And there they found a delegation of workers, a dozen or so. Ford Smith and Pete Walsh were as thick as thieves with them.
“The boys in the shop figure they got some say around here,” Ford Smith said.
One of the workers said, “We voted you the leader, Bob, and we ain’t complainin’. But in view of what happened outside we figure—”
“You want to quit?”
“Hell, no! Them was our buddies. But we’re sore and we want you and the others here to be damn sure and not knuckle under to Bartlett. We’re ready to fight the deputies and the strikebreakers. If they come bargin’ in, we’ll give them more than they bargained for.”
Bob Olinger shook his head. “Now, wait a minute, boys. You want to fight fire with fire. Well, that’s a good motto, but not for a strike. We decided on a peaceful sit-down strike. You start any rough stuff and the National Guard will be turned loose on us. What chance will we have then? Use your heads, boys, no matter what happens.”
“You see, fellows, he’s stuck on that Bartlett girl,” cut in Ford Smith.
“So you told them about her. All right, Smith, you can run things from now on. The boys haven’t confidence in me any more. I’m pulling out.”
Disgusted Quade walked out of the office. He went down to the recreation room. More than a hundred of the sit-down strikers were gathered around, playing games. Quade got up on a bench and began speaking. But today he was selling a human commodity, not books.
“Men,” he boomed, “your delegation has just elected a new leader for you. Ford Smith, who isn’t one-tenth the man Bob Olinger is… Shut up, until I finish! Smith wants to fight. He wants you to arm yourselves with wrenches and clubs and fight the National Guardsmen who are armed with machine guns, rifles, hand grenades and tear gas. Listen!” Quade’s voice carried to every ear in the room.
“You’ve fought a losing battle to now; you’re still fighting it. Because you’ve traitors in your own ranks, spies!”
“What about you?” someone yelled. “You don’t belong here.”
“No,” retorted Quade. “But I’m going to tell you some things. Last night John Hocker, vice president of this company, was murdered in this plant. With a rifle. The same rifle that was used to shoot Sheriff Spiess outside and which started that slaughter. The person who fired those shots was one of you; he also killed another worker in here, Martha White, this morning. We just found her body.”
Yells and curses went up, but Quade roared it all down. “Are you mad now? Well, you’re going to be a damn sight madder when Ford Smith gets to running things and fights the police and the National Guard. You’re going to be so mad a lot of you are going to get yourselves killed. And that’s going to make the rest of you even madder, those of you who’re left. You don’t want that. That’s why you need a leader who has a cool head, a calm one. Bob Olinger!”
Quade was the greatest salesman in the country. He could sell anything. He sold those sit-down strikers Bob Olinger…. He sold him so well to the men who had lost faith in him that they almost raised the roof.
When Ford Smith came into the room with the delegates he was hooted out. A few minutes later Olinger came in and received a real ovation.